Edition Numero Uno, right here in all it’s glory. Follow the link to see!
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The Breaking Dawn break-down
Foreplay better than the Finale of the Twilight Saga
By: Emma Malm
After three movies of, “Please, please, please!”, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) finally gets what she wants: sex with her vampire lover. Unfortunately, the foreplay was better than the real deal. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1, like disappointing sex, is a strange combination of boring and overly stimulating.
Director Bill Condon (Dream Girls, Gods of Monsters) doesn’t waste any time setting the scene for viewers: five seconds and one line in, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) tears off his shirt and runs into the woods – terribly upset, as usual. But, hey, it’s better than him actually delivering a line.
The next half hour or five are devoted to Bella and Edward Cullen’s (Robert Pattinson) wedding preparations and the wedding itself. Admittedly, the wedding scenes were beautiful. The camera follows Bella down the aisle, focusing on the details of her perfect dress, flowers and hair. Strangely, this feels like the most suspenseful moment in the film.
A montage of wedding speeches follows – the only instance of intentional comedy in the film. “I have a gun and I know how to use it Bella’s father jokingly warns. Simple and been- done-before humour, yes, but humour nonetheless – something the flick lacks over the next two hours.
Next in the prepubescent fantasy comes the honeymoon, delivering every cliché an overly romanticized tweenager could hope for. Everyone in the theatre was tingling with excitement while waiting for the big sex scene in the entire audience bursting into laughter: Edward breaks the bed, Bella wakes up with bruises, and the bedroom is transformed into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Is it just me, or does the following need to be asked: is this a good example to set for young girls?
Then, Bella eats some chicken and finds out she is pregnant with a half-dead, undead, immortal-vampirish-monster baby. I don’t know about today’s middle schoolers, but this bit was not in my girlish fantasy.
Naturally, the rest of the movie is devoted to a shamelessly unveiled abortion debate. Language like “it’s my decision” and “why can’t you see it the way I see it?” spouts from Bella’s mouth as she defends her choice to keep the baby that may kill her. But don’t worry; as this is a debate, there are a number of sides. Edward believes Bella carries a “thing” in her womb; the adorable Alice Cullen (Ashley Greene) calls it a “fetus”; the fiery vampire Rosalie Hale (Nikki Reed) names it a “baby”.
After a hipster vampire vs. bro werewolf battle, Bella goes into labour and things stop being silly. Any merit to the characters’ pro-life arguments completely negated after watching this birthing scene. Bill Condon leaves the land of melodrama – it’s just not dramatic enough – and bravely enters a brand of gothic horror. Gory and are a few words to describe this scene.
Though it was filmed perfectly, it was in no way integrated into the rest of the
film. Before entering the gothic, Condon has already jumped from romance to melodrama to just plain ridiculous, giving the film a fragmented feel.
per
,”
, which resulted
is
gut-wrenchingThe Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1
was not nearly as entertaining as the three films preceding it. But, if you want to feel connected to pop culture and you’ve already seen the other
three, you might as well watch this one, too.
Read MoreTrin Fashion
By: Natalya Odorico
Fashionistas and fashionistos alike are obsessed with the winter season. With the mercury dropping here in downtown Toronto, layering-lovers are exchanging summer’s ‘bear-it-all’ mantra for winter’s ‘wear-it-all’. Mother nature’s winter wrath has many thinking practically, with warmth as their focus. Knits, fur, cashmere, and tweed are the inspiration of many, resulting in effortlessly cosy looks.
HED: #SNAPPED DEK: Talk about trending at Trin
****FOR PINK HAIR GIRL, WE NEED THE NAME FUCK*** Patterned dress with ruffled detailed shirt beneath (SO IN!) plus visible thick wool socks just peeking out from beneath black leather rocker-chic boots with the perfect amount of heel – LOVE LOVE LOVE. Also, this hair? Supermodel Charlotte Free is definitely taking notes from this Trin-stylista. This girl’s outfit takes all the right risks.
***FOR DONALD*** Featuring a discreet movember stache (hello, hottie!) Donald B has got the scholarly Trin look down. He keeps it cool by cuffing his khakis, making sure his shoes aren’t too unscuffed and topping the look off with a knit toque. The final touch is most notworthy: his Gucci lemonade exterior is an authentic and stylish way to add a bit of pop to what can be a long winter.
***FOR EMILY*** Mash-ups! I’m talking a music inspired, take-a-taste-of-everything-good-and-throw-it-into-one outfit. Emily Opala does this fabulously. A menswear inspired collage of boyfriend jeans, vintage shoes, and cranberry knit makes her a force not to be reckoned with. Well-accessorized with an indigo toque and always-trendy circle scarf – this pic oozes cuteness!
****FOR OTHER GUY WHOSE NAME WE DONT KNOW**** Completely unbeknownst to him, this dude knows how to hold down fall comfort and style. His grey wool coat and dual coloured scarf against a striped shirt is easy and so Joe Fresh. More importantly, though, his heart-warming smile convinces me the winter won’t be too bad and that boat shoes are okay… but only for him.
****FOR NICK**** There’s something in the air that smells like academia. Yup, it’s coffee beans, worn leather and Downy shirt-starch. Nick Chong is #SNAPPED looking particularly professional and casual chic. His tailoring is clean but by no means uptight. His put-together look reflects a sense of ease without looking careless or sloppy.
***FOR NORA**** This blonde beauty pairs tall black leather boots and dark-washed jeans with a black pashmina and a pop of tangerine – talk about Orange Crush. Nora Seegmiller owns the quad like a celeb, embracing the bit of warmth that November has us clinging to. A bit of that Ralph Lauren country-in-the-city kinda thing… and those David Yurman cuffs – simply lovely!****FOR WALTER**** Love this combo! #SNAPPED in a single biking-glove, Mr. Yoo knows what’s right about mens fashion this winter. Dark wash jeans, warm fleece button-up, double breasted jacket, Clark’s, and a little bit of hair gel has him ready to ride his fixie around campus in style … or to hit up the next runway show in Milan. Whatever.
HED: Shut up and Shop DEK: Places to hint up to get winter-ready:
H&M: For wintertime accessories, spice up your greys with bright hues and patterns featured in H&M’s Versace X collection. The scarves, hats, and gloves are to. die. for.
Kensington Market: Perfect for the hippied-out, alpaca ponchos are a’plenty here. I unleashed my inner flower child last winter and bought one – it was irrefutably one of my best purchases of the season. Perfect over layers of knit, these gems are have both unbeatable warmth and the irremovable scent of Nag Champa … Win.
Lavish & Squalor: Got some extra chedda? Head over to this trendy Queen spot that features collections from Cheap Monday, Fred Perry, Vanishing Elephant, MINK PINK and Ksubi. With men’s knitwear, hats and tees by BRIXTON worthy of your dollars and leather outerwear by Muubaa worthy of your drool, this place is it! Their women’s collections are just as enticing.
Scotch & Soda: This Amsterdam-based fashion brand has affordable women’s and men’s apparel that pays strict attention to detail. Their vintage-style garments include chunky knits, denim button-downs, military-inspired outerwear and practical (yet stylish) leather boots with rubber soles.
Want to be #SNAPPED for the next issue for the Salterrae! Shout out .odorico@gmail.com or find photographer extraordinaire Donald Belfon to get your Vogue on!
FOR IMAGES FOR THIS ARTICLE, CHECK HERE
Read MoreDuranswers
The kitten is out of the mitten, but the puss is in the pudding
By: ‘Lucat’
This holiday season, I found myself in a minor identity crisis on account of too many long nights procrastinating in front of claymation Rudolph re-runs. At first, I found myself relating to Yukon Cornelius. For one thing, he has a dog sled, which is pretty cool. Then there’s the fact that he keeps his great facial hair long past the Movember expiration date. But, one Tuesday around 3 during the scene on the Island of Misfit Toys, I realized that the flying Lion King, and not Cornelius at all, was my Christmastide alter-ego. His mind – like mine – is omnipotent. His wisdom, unprecedented. And so, Trinity College, take my advice not with a grain of salt but with the utmost sincerity, for they are not counsels but prophecies.
Dear Sultan of Solutions, My guzzling has gotten out of control this Yuletide. My favourite white shirt is ruined with
wine stain upon wine stain upon…rum stain? How can I remedy this unfortunate happenstance? I look like I’m homeless,
Spilling Problem
Dear Spilling Problem, Open your mind to possibility. The key here is to look not at the stain as a hindrance, but as
a blessing. All of those splotches, they are concept art. Their synthesis is the manifestation of chaos and order, right and wrong, hope and despair in our shared surreality. Embrace the void.
I am the bastion of truth, Gurucat.
Dearest Lucat, I’m not at home when I’m at home. My res room is filled with pictures of faces I do not know.
People in the quad gesture toward me and call me names that aren’t my own. Who am I? Fix my confusion,
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous, You have contracted the most contagious Trin disease. Many Men and Women of College
have fallen prey to side effects of this sick social experiment we call In my time here I have been “That Purple Guy,” “Wolverine,” and now “Lucat ze kitteh.” Sometimes I meow and curl up on the floor. We are all inflicted, but the good news is that your identity is in constant flux. After breaks of two weeks or more you can completely reinvent yourself! Maybe one day you’ll recognize the face in your pictures.
Alternatively, your frenemies are playing a hilarious practical joke on you. Life is just a series of chuckles,
Lucas
Read MoreBorn This Way
Consequences of a phrase too often used
By: Arash Lofti
Two years ago, I volunteered at Pride. I had no political stance on it, and didn’t necessarily think my coming out merited so much drunken revelry. I went nonetheless.
There was a lot of talk about “being yourself” – a phrase too often used. I have heard people who justify anything from poor academics to outlandish Pride outfits by saying, “It’s just who I am.” Quite frankly, the public determinism, instead of a focus on being biologically drawn to the same sex, renders coming out that much more difficult. This “born this way” talk is burdening;
if “gayness” is truly a necessity of the self, it leaves one with apparently no choice and a need for a coping mechanism.
One of the contributing factors to the difficulty of is that sexuality into a driving force in one’s life. This is not a normative claim; I still maintain that even if sexual orientation boils down to a choice, this choice is arbitrary. I only claim that we must not confuse the self with the person’s biology and potential – or lack thereof – for action. Biology and thoughts can be inevitable. I could get you to think anything by a mere suggestion. It seems harsh to hold you responsible (not necessarily in a negative sense) for an appetite or thought.
The notion “This is just who I am,” can have quite negative consequences. British teacher Katharine Birbalsingh argues that its impact on education has created a “culture of excuses.” Countless hours are spent trying to accommodate students’ supposed needs, thereby limiting their self-sufficiency and narrowing their curriculum, when they may be better off if they had been left to overcome their difficulties on their own terms.
Similarly, sexuality is only a sensitive issue once make it so. It’s like an organic silence: it’s not “awkward” until someone points it out. Misconstrued analytic self-help mantras, like “I am just being myself” should not be in our vocabulary. We should remind kids that they are responsible for their lives, that they should refrain from excuses, and hold them up to tougher standards. “Be yourself” often justifies following whims when, sometimes, choices are tougher than that. By all means, we should succumb to some whims; ones like sexual orientation can be the source of much love and excitement. But sexual orientation should also be considered arbitrary, and will be once we divert focus from it.
The harm originates from attempts to appease everyone. We try to help kids find their “passion” and “who they really are” and, consequently, take hard work and acquired tastes and interests out of the equation. Failure then becomes apparently a result of incompatibility rather than a sign that a bit more effort needs to be exerted and we hear, once again: “It’s just not my thing.”
Read MoreNightmare before Christmas
An alumni perspective on the holidays
By: Jesse Greene
As a student, December meant less about the holidays (I was going to write “Christmas” but I’d hate to look like one of those ignorant white people) and more about exams. My life was taken over by excessive binge eating and evenings in TC 22 spent dreaming of the day that I would never again have to answer a question that began with “In what ways and to what extent.” More often than not, it would begin to look a lot more like x number of exams in x-1 days (in other words, a lot of exams in not a whole lot of time) than x-mas.
What was always most bizarre to me, though, wasn’t the stress, but the fact that for a season of sharing – of celebrations alongside those you (ought to) love most – it was actually a time I spent largely to myself.
Nightly 2:15 AM Tim Horton’s trips with friends allowed me to grieve the downside of post- colonial nationalism in Cuba and the need for an anti-calendar entry so that no one would ever make the mistake that I did by taking a course on post-colonial nationalism in Cuba. While these trips felt like an escape from solitude, the sense of relief was only ever temporary. Shortly after, or (more truthfully) whenever the guilt of trying to drag out the coffee trip tugged at my Catholic conscious to unrivalled levels only my mother could only aspire to achieve, I would return to a blank computer screen with a word count that needed to be doubled…and then some.
And then, after submitting the paper or writing the exam, I would return to my room and go through the same routine until the next one. My life was straight out of a scene from Groundhog Day. It was only during exam time that an otherwise twenty minute meal evolved into an hour long affair. Being with friends, even if it meant engaging in a competition to see who had it off worst, (cue the tales of post-colonial Cuban nationalism) served as the perfect escape from the countless evaluations.
And that really was what made this time the most solitary – the countless evaluations. It was during this period that you returned to being a 9-digit number whose ability to construct ideas, offer up original insight, and source appropriate examples was decoded into a percentage. Throughout December, one percent could feel like the difference between being the CEO and being the CEO’s receptionist. Doing well on an essay translated to a salary riddled with zeros (preferably six) preceded by a one. And not doing well? See: Parent’s basement.
In fourth year, the pressure had intensified. While I had absolutely no intention of attending either law or medical school, I doubted myself. What if I want to go to law school and that 81% on the in-class quiz keeps me from getting in? I was scared. Although I could apply reason to developing essay arguments in order to succeed, when it came to my own life, doing so evaded me.
Fear is a powerful weapon, and at university, it tended to be responsible for more than a few self-inflicted wounds. I recall feeling that the 84% I finished with in ECO100 was going to signal to a future employer that I wasn’t the best candidate for the position. I was wrong. I was hired a week before my final exam by two employers for corporate positions. I used the negotiating skills from university to not only secure the positions, but to fandangle both concurrently.Don’t let a number define your future. And, most importantly, don’t let December exam period be the Grinch who stole Christmas.
Read More#Trending @Trinity
Patterns of behaviour otherwise unnoticed by the naked eye.
By: Victoria Hoffman
1. Teeter-totters … in the form of Buttery tables.
2. Platypuses … tongue-in-beak.
3. The 1% … leave 99 bottles of beer on the Wall.
4. Midnight … rush or get “squashed.”
5. Hiatuses … The ears cooperate.
6. Quad clashes … unleash the slackin’.
7. Mid-less … everything must either be, or not be.
8. Tricks … let’s butter the Buttery.
9. Treats … cake-flavoured vodka?
10. Bang! … ing.
Read MoreJUICED!
Halftime Habits
By: Jack Cashin
Just as you are about to take possession of the ball, a sharp and shrill sound pierces your ears – the sound of the referee’s whistle blowing. What is it this time? Did he see another phantom handling of the ball? Did Fabio Ponti do his impression of the Italian national team by falling to the ground (some call it diving, some call it embellishing, Fabio calls it instinct) and flailing his limbs about as if he was concurrently suffering a Taser shock and a femur fracture of his femur?
As you turn to complain to the ref, regardless of the call, you realize he is merely indicating that the first half is over – it’s halftime. There are only a few minutes before play will resume. How are you going to prepare to tackle the crucial second half? With your mind racing, you can’t help but remember the words of famed NCAA coach Bob Knight: “Everyone wants to win, but not everyone is willing to prepare to win.”
There appear to be two main schools on how to best exploit the precious pause that is halftime: physical versus mental preparation. The first – physical preparation – covers a range of possibilities. It involves everything from attending to the injuries taken during the first half (always got to have the Flintstones band-aids for Dave Scholl or that kid will freak out), to running for a quick bathroom break (a favourite of the notoriously small-bladdered James Park), to snacking on Power bars (or, if you’re like me, fruits smuggled from Strachan). One of the most important ways to prep physically between halves, though, is through hydration. The last thing you want during the second half is to suffer a heat stroke because you forgot to drink water AND missed out on Mrs. Shackleford’s orange slices.
Now, while you could take this advice, run out to Metro and buy the full Gatorade G Series Prime (read: rip-off), you may also say to yourself, “Hey, I go to Trinity! I only drink water when I’m out of vodka – and I never run out of vodka.” In this case, you should look to NBA Champion Ron Artest, or as he is legally known nowadays, Metta World Peace (no joke, that’s actually his name – his daughter’s name is Diamond World Peace…but it’s weird to associate “diamond” with “world peace” to me…and Mr. DiCaprio…but whatever). While the name may be a little ironic given the fact that he once jumped into a crowd to beat up an opposing fan, it may come as a comfort to know that he is also famous for having drank Hennessy cognac at halftime in the early days of his career.
When mentally preparing for the second half, some people like to stay quiet, keep their thoughts to themselves and focus. Others prefer to talk with their teammates, discussing attack plans and highlighting what went well (or not so well) in the first half. When taking a psychological approach, it is important to avoid distractions. Keep focused on your goals for the second half and ignore everything else. If that one heckler on the sideline has been chirping you all game, just block him out (and get him after the game in the parking lot). If Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake are performing, it’s probably best to ask for a recap later.
When it boils down to it, though, the moral of the story, regardless of the approach you take, is to drown out anything that is going to stop you from achieving your goals. Hear that sound? It’s that damned referee blowing his whistle again. Now put down this article and get your head in the game – we’re counting on you to get that W.
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